Taiwan has obtained about 200,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca PLC and Oxford University via the first round of the COVAX scheme, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) confirmed yesterday, saying that vaccinations might start next month at the earliest.
The CECC on Thursday announced that Taiwan was listed among the countries that would receive COVID-19 shots through the COVAX global vaccine distribution scheme, which includes 1,303,200 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine allocated to non-UN member states.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, yesterday said a delivery date has not been set yet, but added that COVAX has been in contact with Taiwan over the past two days.
Photo: EPA-EFE/DGA/Luis Correas Handout
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, on Thursday said the delivery of the vaccines could being as soon as next month.
Delivery would begin after the WHO issues an emergency use approval for the AstraZeneca vaccine and notifies countries about distribution amounts and delivery schedules, he said, adding that vaccination can begin as early as a week after the shots arrive.
Chen yesterday confirmed the schedule outlined by Chuang and said that as preparations are already being made, inoculation would begin as soon as the vaccines are received, with healthcare professionals and essential frontline workers having first priority.
Asked about reports that the AstraZeneca vaccine has limited efficacy against a South African variant of COVID-19 and that South Africa has halted its rollout of the vaccine, CECC specialist advisory panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said the company’s early data on a relatively small group of people have shown that the vaccine might have limited efficacy in preventing mild and moderate cases of the new strain.
As the vaccines are being administered under emergency use approval, more data would become available, he said.
The CECC would continue to closely monitor the latest data and evaluate how different types of vaccines should be administered in Taiwan, he added.
In related news, Chen said that 4,345 people associated with a cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital are still under home isolation.
All hospital personnel and contract workers who underwent a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test from Wednesday to Friday last week tested negative for COVID-19, he said.
Presenting a preliminary report on the cluster, CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy chief of the CECC’s medical response division, said nine of the 20 confirmed cases in the cluster had contracted the disease directly at the hospital, while the remaining cases had come into close contact with them.
The first infection, as well as a second and third wave of infections at the hospital, occurred within a few days — from Jan. 7 to 14 — showing that viral transmission in the hospital can occur very quickly, which posed challenges to rapid contact tracing, isolation and testing, Lo said.
Some cases had an incubation period of five to seven days, so they initially tested positive and became infectious a day after undergoing a PCR test, he said.
Finding the appropriate timing to conduct PCR tests was also a serious challenge and needs further evaluation, he added.
As part of its emergency response measures at the hospital and in local communities, the CECC for the first time launched an online service for people under isolation, quarantine or self-health management due to the cluster, to let them consult with physicians.
It was also the first time that container houses were set up as temporary testing stations, he said.
The CECC would continue to review and improve the measures to prevent and handle hospital infections, as well as community response measures, including establishing a more efficient model for large-scale testing and isolation, Lo said.
Chen said an imported case of COVID-19 was confirmed yesterday.
The patient is a Taiwanese woman in her 20s who returned from the UK and tested positive in a paid test after completing 14 days of centralized quarantine and seven days of self-health management, he said.
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday criticized the nuclear energy referendum scheduled for Saturday next week, saying that holding the plebiscite before the government can conduct safety evaluations is a denial of the public’s right to make informed decisions. Lai, who is also the chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), made the comments at the party’s Central Standing Committee meeting at its headquarters in Taipei. ‘NO’ “I will go to the ballot box on Saturday next week to cast a ‘no’ vote, as we all should do,” he said as he called on the public to reject the proposition to reactivate the decommissioned
US President Donald Trump on Friday said that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) told him China would not invade Taiwan while Trump is in office. Trump made the remarks in an interview with Fox News, ahead of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “I will tell you, you know, you have a very similar thing with President Xi of China and Taiwan, but I don’t believe there’s any way it’s going to happen as long as I’m here. We’ll see,” Trump said during an interview on Fox News’ Special Report. “He told me: ‘I will never do
The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved an aid and recovery package authorizing the government to allocate up to NT$60 billion (US$1.99 billion) for regions hit by Typhoon Danas and subsequent torrential rains last month. Proposed by the Executive Yuan on Aug. 7, the bill was passed swiftly after ruling and opposition lawmakers reached a consensus in inter-party talks on relief funding and assistance for disaster-stricken areas. The package increases the government’s spending cap from the originally proposed NT$56 billion to NT$60 billion, earmarked for repairing and rebuilding infrastructure, electricity systems, telecommunications and cable TV networks, cultural heritage sites and other public facilities.
FLEXIBLE FORCE: Only about 10 percent of small drones reach their target, an expert said, which is why it is important to make it easier to procure large numbers of drones The military is planning to recategorize military drones as “consumables/munitions,” rather than as aircraft, to speed up the procurement process, the army said yesterday. The Army Command Headquarters said the decision was made because drones, like munitions, need to be rapidly replaced, and thus should be categorized as consumables/munitions “to meet the army’s practical needs.” The headquarters’ confirmation came after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) early yesterday reported that the army was about to make the classification change based on the example of the US, which is Taiwan’s biggest arms provider. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a
RSS